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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23352145">The Heart Asks Pleasure First</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/snakeandmoon/pseuds/Z%20A%20Dusk'>Z A Dusk (snakeandmoon)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Omens (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale and Crowley Met Before The Fall (Good Omens), Aziraphale and Crowley Through The Ages (Good Omens), Aziraphale's True Form (Good Omens), Crowley Created the Stars (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley's Fall (Good Omens), Crowley's True Form (Good Omens), Eventual Happy Ending, I went with choose not to use archive warnings, M/M, Metaphysical Sex, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Pining, Temporary Character Death, That's a tag now, Touch-Starved Aziraphale (Good Omens), Touch-Starved Crowley (Good Omens), a forest of pine trees, because although the death is sad, but still heed the tags please!, it is very very temporary, vaguely referenced anal sex</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 09:56:14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,389</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23352145</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/snakeandmoon/pseuds/Z%20A%20Dusk</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Her will that the fallen and the loyal should be hereditary enemies. As a result, Aziraphale is unable to touch Crowley, or bear Crowley's touch, no matter how hard they try. As the years pass he grapples with his free will, longing to do the one thing that an angel should never be able to do.</p><p>Crowley's post-fall memory is fuzzy, but he can't shake the vague recollection of entwining with another angel in the dark spaces between the stars, long before time began. Aziraphale was all he wanted then, and he's all he wants now.</p><p>A love story told in stars and flaming wheels and longing near-brushes of fingers against hair and faces.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>222</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Heart Asks Pleasure First</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/amerande/gifts">amerande</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>A gift for <a href="http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/amerande">Amerande</a> - thank you for supporting me when I was getting into this whole fanfic shebang!</p><p>Thanks as always to the amazing <a href="http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/miraworos">Mira Woros</a>, who beta'd this fic into its best self.</p><p>Title taken from The Hearts Asks Pleasure First, by Nightwish. I highly recommend you look it up - it's a beautiful song based on the theme from The Piano, and the lyrics fit this fic perfectly.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There was no sound or time, no night or day. But there was potential, movement and colour. The firmament vibrated with crystal-bright energy as Her angels formed great burning pillars of matter from nothing, and hung stars in the new sky.</p><p>The Starmaker drifted through creation for eons, shaping it with his energy, and contemplating Her presence within him. He communicated with other angels as needed. Some felt like a rock cracking, or a chemical burning. Others felt like a light shining, or a sharp intelligence that hurt a little. He knew where they ended and he began, but his sense of self was unconstrained, as though he was still finding his edges. As if he hadn’t finished forming yet.</p><p>Then a new presence arrived, one which the Starmaker automatically welcomed into himself, as if he’d been waiting for it. When it entered him, his diffuse essence started to form itself into something definable. Huge wheels interlocked and turned, and as they did, lines of divine fire ran along each one. He could sense intricate symbols on them, like maps to things he hadn’t created yet.</p><p>When the other celestial entity let itself slide along and through the Starmaker’s wheels, he suddenly knew how a star felt at its birth, new and shining. Shivery sensations flooded him, seeping into places he’d previously thought only Her grace and light could be. </p><p>If the Starmaker had a voice in this form, he would have cried out in pleasure. He felt his essence twining tighter and tighter around the other, as if he could keep it with him always. His wheels shifted and turned so that he and the other angel were pressing together. He could feel the other entity pulsing against him, moving and reshaping itself to get as much of the Starmaker’s energy against it as possible, its own energy vibrating faster until it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began. </p><p>He knew then what it was to want, to yearn, to reach out to something other than God. He knew wholeness, where he should surely have already been whole. When their twining reached a crescendo that made the fire on his wheels take on the other’s colours, he knew there was more than one kind of ecstasy in the universe.</p><p>When the other angel reluctantly drew back, its light flickering a little sadly, caressing the Starmaker’s wheels as it left, he knew regret, and loneliness.</p>
<hr/><p>The Starmaker staggered and nearly fell. Pain ripped through his bicep, where one of the angels loyal to Her had slashed it. He was crying helplessly for every dead angel he’d seen, and for those he’d watched being forced over the cliff at the edge of the battlefield, to who knew what.  </p><p>“Come on!”</p><p>Dazed, he let himself be dragged behind the nearest bluff, into a sheltered cove. </p><p>“Why on earth did you help me?” He snapped, recognising the uniform of one of Hers. “Don’t you know we’re on opposite sides?”</p><p>“Of course I know that.” The Principality said, with a note of irritation. “But you were hurt. You sinned against God. Not against me.”</p><p>The Starmaker realised there were several angels hidden behind the bluff, rebels and loyal both. The angel was healing where he should have been killing, and a pit opened in his stomach. “Careful, angel. This is a quick way to finding out what’s over the edge of that cliff.”</p><p>The angel opened his mouth as if to retort, then faltered. He reached to heal the Starmaker’s arm, fingers pausing for a moment to dance over the star charts that shimmered on it. The sounds of the battle faded the moment he made contact with his skin, causing the taller angel to jolt as if he’d been shocked.</p><p>“You ...” he whispered, as the Principality looked up at him. The Starmaker immediately recognised in his eyes the exact shade of blue he’d woven into so many of his creations after that fateful night. Then a horde of furious angels, rebels and loyal both, found their hiding place, and he lost him in the ensuing melee.</p>
<hr/><p>The battle raged on and on. The Starmaker was exhausted and hurt, leaking divine essence onto the battlefield. He searched desperately for the Principality, longing to see him one last time before his now-inevitable demise. </p><p>When he finally found him, the Starmaker simply gave up and lay down on the ground. The beautiful angel who’d healed him, touched him with love, known him in the most deeply intimate of ways, was lying dead on the battlefield.  Suddenly none of the other things he’d feared to lose - immortal life, Her grace, the stars he’d cradled in his hands – seemed to matter.</p><p>He twined his fingers with the Principality’s, closing his eyes. He would have given anything for just a little while longer with him, in the dark space between the stars. </p><p>“Save him,” he pleaded with the Presence within and around him. “Throw me off the cliff, I don’t care. Just save him. Don’t let a being of such deep love die.”</p><p>Suddenly, he was looking into eyes so big he could barely see the edges of them. </p><p>“You will fall.” He knew he was hearing Her voice in his heart for the last time, and it took every ounce of his willpower not to beg Her to keep him. “But I will save him. You recognized pure love when you saw it. You may live to regret it.”</p><p>His divinity was clawing at his insides, scraping them raw as it struggled to get out of him. He fell to his knees, hands pressing helplessly against his torso, as if he could stem the flow of divine energy pouring out of him in falls of perfect silvery white, pooling on the ground and racing back towards Her as She called it home. He looked up, mouth open in a wordless, tortured scream, and his gaze met Her merciless eyes, blazing with every colour in Her creation. They were the last thing he saw as She flung him over the edge of the cliff. Yet his last thought was of a gentle angel with eyes the colour of his stars.</p>
<hr/><p>He awoke to the sound of agonised moans and screams all around him. It was searingly hot, and the scent of charred flesh filled his nostrils until his insides heaved with it. He tried to move, but his body wouldn’t obey, and when he tried to cry out, the only sound that emerged was a ragged hiss. As he came fully to consciousness, he realised his entire body had transmuted into something new and terrifying. Long fangs pressed inside his mouth, and his arms and legs and back and chest had twisted and changed into masses of long, undulating coils. </p><p>He wanted to ask, <em>what am I?</em> But there was no one to answer. There was only the howling of the newly damned, and an insistent dark pain in his mind. Frightened, and so very alone among the suffering throngs, he carefully rested his head on a long coil of his unfamiliar body, and let the pain push him back into unconsciousness.  </p>
<hr/><p>By the time he glided, serpent-formed, into Eden, Crawly‘s fall was but a vague memory, as if the scorching sulphur had burned up his recollections of the battle. The only memories Crawly retained were of hanging his stars – and of one exquisite moment when he’d known the joy of joining with another angel. In the long, dark days in hell, he started to think it was merely a feverish dream, his mind’s way of giving him something beautiful to hang on to.</p><p>The first time he saw the angel, the celestial being was gazing up into the branches of the Tree Of Knowledge, as if it could answer whatever question had caused him to frown up at the fruit. Crawly’s heart leaped, warmth and joy flooding him so unexpectedly that he hissed softly at the sensation. Surely it couldn’t be …?</p><p>Without thinking, he slithered over to the angel and greeted it joyfully. </p><p>“I’m sorry, dear fellow, ought I to know you? I kept mostly to myself before the … erm … before the battle, you know.”</p><p>Crawly froze. Of course. Of course the angel didn’t know him. The fragile memory had likely been a dream after all – it was so faint and so very long ago. And why would something so lovely want to join with him in any form?</p><p>“My misssstake.”</p><p>He said and quickly curved so he could glide away from the tree, ignoring the concerned look on the angel’s face.</p>
<hr/><p>In 41 AD, Crowley discovered he had something no other demon seemed to have. He could imagine things the way the humans did. </p><p>When the angel sitting across the table from him offered him his first oyster from his own hand, Crowley was knocked breathless by a sudden imagining of those hands on his skin, and that beautiful smile being for him alone. For a blazing hot moment, he imagined them defying their sides and reaching out to one another. </p><p>The faint half-memory from before his fall was prodding at the inside of his skull. Crowley couldn’t bear it any longer.</p><p>“What do you remember from before the battle?”</p><p>He asked abruptly. Aziraphale gave him a surprised look, placing his oyster back on the plate and gazing contemplatively at the demon.</p><p>“Not that much if I’m honest, dear fellow. As I said in Eden, I know I kept mostly to myself. The details are more than a little fuzzy, though, which makes me think I sustained some damage in the battle. A rather unpleasant thought. Why do you ask?”</p><p>“No reason. No reason at all. More wine?”</p><p>Crowley poured quickly and drank down a long draft to compose himself. <em>Let it go</em>, he told himself.<em> Just let it go. You’re head over heels for this bloody angel no matter whether you knew him before. You’re in enough trouble as it is. </em></p>
<hr/><p>The Arrangement went more or less flawlessly until 1705. They’d come in from a performance of The Fairy-Queen at the Dorset Garden Theatre, and Aziraphale had suggested opening a few bottles of wine. Crowley, never one to turn down drinking with the angel, had agreed. But the way Aziraphale had flinched away from the suggestion of a light touch on the hand while they watched the opera, one of so many times he’d acted as Crowley’s touch would dirty him, was eating away at the demon. When he was enough bottles in, he blurted out the words he’d held back for centuries.</p><p>“There a reason you never touch me, angel? Scared my demonic essence will ssssully you?”</p><p>Aziraphale put down his wineglass, and Crowley saw the wine refilling the bottles. He didn’t want to be drunk for this. Crowley very much wanted to be drunk for this, but the angel looked fit to start stammering his way through an awkward explanation, so Crowley reluctantly sobered up. Probably better that way, he admitted to himself. Less chance he’d lose it and start crying from want of the angel’s touch.</p><p>There was a long silence, punctuated by an obscene amount of stuttering and false starts from Aziraphale. Crowley, already regretting his drunken words with his whole heart, was about to tell him to leave it, it’s fine, let’s do lunch in a century, yeah, when Aziraphale spoke.</p><p>“I can’t,” he said simply.</p><p>“Don’t want to, more like,” Crowley muttered bitterly.</p><p>“No, Crowley.” Suddenly he was beside him on the chaise, their thighs tantalizingly close together. “I literally can’t touch you. Whenever I try, it’s … it’s like my body won’t obey my mind.”</p><p>Crowley was shocked into temporary silence. When he found he could speak again, he said, “but you want to?”</p><p>Aziraphale laughed a bit.</p><p>“That’s what concerns you?”</p><p>“Yes,” Crowley admitted. “Angel … do you want to?”</p><p>“I want to touch you so much.” Aziraphale said quietly, staring down at his hands as he twisted his fingers together nervously. “If you only knew how many times I’ve tried to reach out, to brush your hand with mine, to tuck a lock of that ridiculous, beautiful hair of yours behind your ear ….”</p><p>Crowley tried to respond, but couldn’t raise anything more than incoherent noises from his throat.</p><p>“What would happen if I ….?”</p><p>Crowley extended his hand. Aziraphale nodded, and Crowley tried to brush his fingers over the back of his hand. The angel recoiled at once. This close up, Crowley could see in his eyes how desperately he wanted to do anything but that.</p><p>“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I swear, I wanted you to.”</p><p>“I believe you, angel. Wonder why it’s like this?”</p><p>Aziraphale just shook his head, eyes wet.</p><p>"I don't know, but it distresses me. To not have control over my own corporation, my own decisions. Well, it's as if I'm not allowed free will. And besides, I... I just... I want that connection with you."</p><p>Crowley had no idea what to say, but he was sure it was somehow his fault. Perhaps it had to do with his actions while in Eden. Regardless, he felt guilty at causing the angel pain. Guilt, and sorrow for something he could never have.</p><p>“It’s getting late, dear boy. I think I’ll call it a night.”</p><p>They both knew he didn’t sleep. Crowley managed a weak smile and a “sweet dreams, angel,” holding himself together until he was safely back in his own lodgings, where he lay down on the bed and cried his throat raw.</p>
<hr/><p>Sometime in the mid-nineteenth century, Crowley dropped by the bookshop with a bottle of wine, and was greeted by Aziraphale practically hopping with excitement.</p><p>“I’ve figured it out, dear boy!”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Why I can’t touch you.”</p><p>Crowley sank onto the nearest chair as if he’d been punched in the gut. They hadn’t mentioned it since that night in 1705. Crowley would sometimes lapse and reach towards Aziraphale, but he usually remembered in time and stopped before the angel had to move away. </p><p>“I could hardly ask heaven, you see,” Aziraphale continued. “And I confess, I was baffled. But the answer was so obvious, my dear. Angels can’t disobey, can they? She ordered that those who did not fall, would be always in opposition to those who did. Hereditary enemies, as it were.”</p><p>“So you can’t touch me because it’s against Her command?”</p><p>“I believe so, yes.”</p><p>Crowley managed to nod, but his heart was sick.</p><p>“Have you … have you ever tried touching another demon, to test the theory as it were?”</p><p>Aziraphale stiffened slightly, pursing his lips.</p><p>“I may have.”</p><p>If Crowley hadn’t been in such pain, he would have laughed.</p><p>“You didn’t!”</p><p>“I most certainly did. I had to know if this was specific to you.”</p><p>“Angel … how on earth did you …?”</p><p>“You’re not the only demon ever stationed on earth, you know. Some fellow was terrorising a village in Wessex back in the seventeenth century. He was hardly the sharpest tack, and so I was able to disguise myself and approach him. I was going to simply brush by, as one does when passing a stranger in a crowded tavern. Gave myself quite the knock on the head - I couldn’t touch him, and so I ended up walking into the doorframe instead.”</p><p>Crowley started laughing. He couldn't help it. The thought of his prim angel trying to accidentally jostle a demon, and the fact that he’d been determined to test the theory - it was too much. However, as his mirth subsided, the cold truth settled around his heart like the hand of a corpse.</p><p>“So unless you can convince yourself that it’s part of Her command for you to touch me, we’ll never ….?”</p><p>“Technically yes, but my dear fellow, now I understand the shape of it, I can work on it. I do have quite the agile mind, you know. I’m quite certain that if I can just think my way around this...”</p><p>“Well, let’s hold to hope, then,” Crowley said, forcing something like positivity into his voice as he manifested a couple of larger than normal wine glasses and poured quickly.</p>
<hr/><p>As the years passed, Aziraphale’s relentless work on his own free will started to yield results. He never quite managed to touch Crowley’s bare skin, but every so often Crowley would be stunned by a light touch to his shirt sleeve and, on one blissful occasion in 1890, the brush of a hand against the side of his thigh. In 1905, Crowley was able to slide the tips of his fingers against Aziraphale’s hair, for mere seconds.</p><p>It was never enough. It could never be enough. Crowley’s need for the angel ran beneath his skin like water under solid ground, carving out spaces inside him that would never be filled. </p>
<hr/><p>Then the Blitz came. From out of the rubble of a church, an angel walked behind the demon who’d just saved his books, and who was still limping slightly. When the Bentley pulled up outside the bookshop, Aziraphale turned to Crowley with an expression half hopeful and half terrified.</p><p>“Come in? The least I can do is offer you tea.”</p><p>“Just tea?”</p><p>Crowley teased, then froze as he heard it the way Aziraphale must have heard it. Relief flooded him when the angel huffed out a laugh, and they walked into the shop together.</p><p>“Do sit down, dear boy, please.”</p><p>Crowley did so, taking off his glasses and hat and letting himself relax as Aziraphale bustled about. When he brought out a bowl of water and some strips of cloth, and placed them on the floor by Crowley’s feet, it took the demon a moment to register what he meant to do.</p><p>“Angel, what do you think you’re doing?”</p><p>“You’re hurt,” Aziraphale said softly. “And as deeply as I regret that, I also cannot, as an angel, pass by someone who’s suffering, can I? It’s Her will that I should heal, after all.”</p><p>Crowley looked at the angel helplessly. There were probably several things he ought to say right now. Sensible things. Logical things. Things that would stop them risking serious trouble.</p><p>Blessed if he knew the words for any of those things. All he knew was that after six thousand years, he was going to feel the angel’s touch against his skin. He would have changed to his snake form and slithered all the way along that burning sanctified floor, for the chance of one moment like this.</p><p>Aziraphale removed Crowley’s shoes and socks carefully, his hands shaking as he wrapped his fingers around Crowley’s ankle. Crowley gasped, fingers digging in the edge of the seat, as he felt Aziraphale’s skin against his. It was as soft as he’d imagined it, and so cool against his own hot skin. </p><p>“Angel,” he growled, body tensing against the urge to drag Aziraphale up and kiss him senseless. One wrong move might break Aziraphale’s determined yet fragile focus on making this an act of angelic love and healing. </p><p>“I know,” the angel replied, strong fingers caressing Crowley’s sore feet as he bathed them achingly slowly. He ran his fingers around the curve of the heel, explored every ridge of the narrow bones, cupped the arches. He massaged arnica ointment into the most inflamed parts. When he bent his head to reverently kiss the top of each foot, Crowley honestly didn’t know if he was going to die, fall apart in ecstasy, or start sobbing. Probably all three at once.</p><p>By the time Aziraphale had finished, grey dawn light was spilling across the canvas of the night sky, and the only sound in the room was the hitched breathing of an angel and a demon. Every so often he tried to let his fingers slide further up Crowley’s calves, but the celestial circuit breaker kicked in, and he could go no further.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he whispered when at last Crowley’s burns were healed enough that the angel’s hands would no longer let themselves be pressed to his skin. “It will never be enough.”</p><p>Crowley thought it was a pity he couldn’t just let the angel see how his heart bled – surely then divine grace would let the angel heal that constantly open wound? He reached out to ghost his fingers just millimetres from the angel’s cheek.</p><p>“Never,” he agreed. “But it’s more than I ever thought I’d get.”</p>
<hr/><p>Peace bloomed in Crowley’s chest as the Oxford-via-London bus arrived at Tadfield. Oh, he knew there would be some kind of retribution. But there had been something in Aziraphale’s eyes when he’d once again tentatively mentioned their side, offering his heart in a box with Aziraphale’s name on. Something that made Crowley feel that perhaps divine grace wasn’t forbidden to demons after all.</p><p>Then they sat down on the bus, and suddenly Aziraphale’s hand was in his. Crowley found himself sincerely wondering if the world had ended after all, and he’d inexplicably been allowed access to his own personal heaven.</p><p>“Angel …?”</p><p>Aziraphale turned and gave him a tiny smile.</p><p>“It seems perhaps my recent actions have, um, given me new insight that I am in fact my own person, and my will is sufficient for anything I wish to do.” </p><p>Nothing else was said, but Crowley dozed peacefully all the way to London, Aziraphale’s hand grasped tightly even as he slept.</p>
<hr/><p>Crowley couldn’t keep from laughing as Aziraphale sprawled on the floor, where his first attempt at walking with Crowley’s legs had landed him.</p><p>“Honestly, dear boy.” He sat up, taking Crowley’s proffered hand and making them both shiver. “I don’t know how you navigate the world in this thing.”</p><p>“A sassy walk and no sense of shame,” Crowley said. Aziraphale laughed, perching on the edge of the bed and looking at Crowley with wide golden eyes that suddenly didn’t look so very demonic with his light shining out of them.</p><p>“You might be wondering.” He began, then straightened the sleek black clothes he was currently sporting as if they were the finest Victorian garb. “That is to say ...”</p><p>Crowley reached for his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.</p><p>“Angel, we haven’t been able to touch each other for six thousand years. It’s ok if you want to go slowly.”</p><p>“Ah. No dear boy, not that. It’s only … well … one does rather feel like the other proverbial shoe is about to drop.”</p><p>“I get it,” Crowley reassured him. “I’d rather wait till things aren’t so fraught, too.”</p><p><em>Besides</em>, he thought to himself, <em>I’ve already waited since long before creation for you. I can wait a few more days.</em> The switch had had an unintended side effect - Crowley had seen in vivid 3D celestial-fire-burning technicolour that Aziraphale was, beyond doubt, the angel he’d merged with so very long ago. </p><p>Aziraphale hadn’t remembered, in Eden. Crowley needed to know if he’d seen it during the switch too, but he didn’t know how to ask. If Aziraphale still didn’t remember, well, Crowley couldn’t imagine how to even begin to explain that their ancient, primordial forms had once twined in divine ecstasy. Yeah, better to wonder a bit longer, steel himself for whatever answer he got.</p>
<hr/><p>Lunch at the Ritz was relaxed, warm, and utterly infuriating. As much as Crowley wanted to celebrate with his angel, he wanted to be alone with him even more. When Aziraphale asked if he might come back with Crowley to the demon’s flat, it was all he could do not to miracle Aziraphale straight to his bed. The moment the door to the flat closed behind them, Crowley turned to the angel.</p><p>“Can I?” he breathed, letting his hand hover close to Aziraphale’s cheek. </p><p>Aziraphale nodded quickly, grabbing Crowley’s hand and pressing it against his face with a gasp. Crowley stepped forward so they were chest to chest, leaning down to press his lips against the angel’s, painfully slowly, savouring every tiny slide, every slight change in pressure. When Aziraphale parted his lips in invitation, Crowley thought for a wild moment that he might just faint, so violently did his head spin at the realisation that this was real. Then they were pressed together against the door, exploring each other with crushing, demanding kisses. </p><p>“We should …. I should ...”</p><p>Crowley was only half-aware that he’d spoken the words out loud, his fevered mind trying to reason that his angel deserved nothing but complete worship, to be savoured, to have every inch of his body explored in wonder and awe.</p><p>“Time for that later,” Aziraphale gasped out between kisses, reaching for Crowley’s shirt and unbuttoning it swiftly, stripping it from him so he could grasp and stroke the demon’s shoulders and arms. </p><p>“Oh.” He slowed slightly then, the desperate passion shivering into something like reverence as he ran both hands down Crowley’s chest, following their trail with his gaze. “Oh, Crowley, you’re so beautiful. I’d imagined of course, but to see you like this ….”</p><p>When Crowley leaned down and picked the angel up in his arms, he was rewarded with a laugh and a gentle swat to his shoulder.</p><p>“Dear boy, what on earth are you doing? I was quite prepared to be ravished,” he added with a wink that made Crowley snort out a most inelegant laugh.</p><p>“Waited six thousand years,” he told the angel. “I can wait six more seconds.” </p><p>With that, he lay Aziraphale down on the bed, quickly snapping his fingers to leave them both naked as he covered the angel’s body with his own, fingers brushing the snowy hair back from his temple with a slow, wondering smile. Aziraphale sighed blissfully, shifting position so their bodies slid together a little more, twining his legs with Crowley’s and tracing patterns against the skin on his sides and ribs.</p><p>“Everything about you feels so good,” he said softly, arching a little to press closer against the demon, and leaning to kiss his shoulders while Crowley watched, wondering what he’d done to deserve such joy.</p><p>“Everything?” he whispered in the angel’s ear with a teasing laugh, pressing close enough to leave Aziraphale in no doubt as to Crowley’s interest.</p><p>“Everything,” Aziraphale affirmed, cupping Crowley’s face in his hands and gazing up at him with so much love that for several long minutes Crowley couldn’t do anything but gaze back, letting the angel see every emotion in his eyes. </p><p>“I want to try something,” Crowley said. “I mean … I want to try so many things. But I … when we swapped, I … saw ....”</p><p>“I know.” Aziraphale ran his thumb over Crowley’s lip, then leaned up and kissed him long and deep. “I saw it, too. I … I wasn’t sure when the right moment to mention it would be. I … I wanted to wait till we had a quiet moment together. Oh, Crowley ...”</p><p>There was a long moment of silence. “We were joined long before the creation of the world,” Crowley finally managed to say.</p><p>“I know.” Aziraphale leaned up to kiss him again. “I was yours almost before I was my own.”</p><p>“Can we?” Crowley’s voice was thick with tears. Being naked with Aziraphale felt vulnerable enough, but this was something else. This was offering to show him his entire soul.</p><p>“Of course. I find myself quite desperate to know you like that.”</p><p>“I’m a demon now; it’ll be so different to what we saw.” He blurted out. “Don’t even know if my true form looks like that any more.”</p><p>“Crowley, I don’t care.” Aziraphale spoke between heated kisses to Crowley’s collar and throat, biting gently at the corner of his jaw, his chest rising and falling faster as he did so. It made it incredibly hard to think, and he was so near, he was so near and he was Crowley’s if he but had the courage to reach out for him. </p><p>He slid his fingertips over every ridge of the angel’s spine, then cupped his hips, bending his head to press a long, slow kiss right over Aziraphale’s heart. </p><p>“I’m yours,” he said against his skin. </p><p>“Then show me.” Aziraphale pulled Crowley into his arms, opening his huge white wings, the multitude of eyes on them all gazing at Crowley with complete adoration. Crowley could see the divine energy glowing inside him and spilling out from his pores until he was phosphorescent. It was as if he’d absorbed Crowley’s light when they merged, and was glowing because of it.</p><p>Crowley closed his eyes and became aware of the full expanse of his metaphysical self for the first time since earth began. He could hear his corporation’s heart thundering with terrified nerves, but then Aziraphale was there. Aziraphale was everywhere. He felt like a thousand feathers encased in light, slowly caressing inside and outside each of Crowley’s spinning wheels. Some of his wheels were cracked, Crowley noticed with strange detachment, their jagged edges mimicking the horns demons had in human mythology. The arcane star-symbols were faded and chipped, like Pictish stones worn indecipherable by too much inclement weather. </p><p>Slowly, so slowly, Aziraphale wove in and out of him, gently pressing his grace against each broken wheel and distorted symbol. It burned slightly, at first, and Crowley folded in on himself a little. Aziraphale paused, stopped, and the loss of his touch hurt worse than the fall. With a soundless sob, Crowley flung himself at the angel, pressing himself into and over and through, until Aziraphale was brushing up against every part of him. </p><p>Aziraphale rushed to meet him, glowing brighter as he swept across each wheel, leaving trails of white light against the dark black and red. The burn of his sacred energy softened to warmth that Crowley craved. For a split second he was aware of their corporeal forms, slick with sweat, gasping and crying out as they grabbed helplessly at one another, Aziraphale sinking his nails in Crowley’s hips and pulling him down between his legs until they were locked together. But then he was spinning out again, his interdimensional form pulsating and shuddering as they moved against one another. </p><p>He could hear Aziraphale’s divine music, not with his human ears, but deep inside him, his rich tones singing through every wheel, each note sounding like Crowley’s name, cried in ecstasy. Crowley’s entire structure rang in response, and every chime was his angel’s name. He was pleading for him, crying out with every atom of his being, clumsily, desperately tilting and changing the angle of his wheels to get as much of the angel against him as possible. Aziraphale was just as frantic, shifting and pulsing rapidly until Crowley thought he would break apart from the sensations.</p><p>“<em>Closer</em>.”</p><p>It was a command, and Crowley obeyed it immediately, letting go of everything he’d ever been and merging completely with his angel. Now every tiny atom of his being was entwined with Aziraphale’s, every part of him pressing and sliding against the angel until Crowley saw stars – his stars. Aziraphale had unknowingly kept them safe after their first merging. </p><p>Crowley tried to speak, tried to communicate the depth of his feelings, but it was too much. All he could do was cry his pleasure with a thousand voices, until it overwhelmed him and he fell back to earth, his human corporation shaking as he collapsed, spent, against Aziraphale.</p><p>It was hours later when Crowley awoke to find himself blanketed in soft white wings, curled protectively around him as the angel held his lover to his chest. He looked up, feeling sleepy and vulnerable, to find Aziraphale smiling tenderly at him, one finger stroking the line of his cheekbone. </p><p>“Morning, beautiful.”</p><p>“Morning.” Crowley had never looked forward to a day with such anticipation before. “What do you want to do today?”</p><p>The angel’s smile spread until he was beaming. “I want to spend the entire day touching you.”</p><p>“We might have to order in then. You know you get cranky when you’re hungry,” Crowley teased, snuggling contentedly against his angel and peppering his face with soft kisses. </p><p>As Aziraphale claimed his mouth with his own, Crowley closed his eyes and let the angel fill each of his senses, so lost in the feel of feathersoft hair and the taste of cinnamon and a cool dawn breeze that he didn’t notice the silvery star charts wending their way across his own skin and glowing softly in Aziraphale’s light.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Liked this? Let me know - comments are fuel for authors!</p><p>Want more delicious angst and fluff, always with the promise of a happy ending? Check out my <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/snakeandmoon/works">other fics</a>!</p><p>Come yell about Good Omens with me on <a href="http://azfell-and-his-demon.tumblr.com">Tumblr</a>.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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